LOS ANGELES — The vast majority of members of the association representing Los Angeles prosecutors voted to have their boss, District Attorney George Gascon, recalled from the job he has held for two years.
The Association of Deputy District Attorneys, comprising more than 800 deputy district attorneys in the county, said Tuesday that 98% of its members back recalling Gascon in a vote. The association said 88.3% of the trial attorneys participated in the vote.
A signature-gathering campaign for a recall is in full swing, with more than 31 cities in LA County supporting the effort. This includes Beverly Hills, which is 71% Democratic.
“This vote is by those who are intimately familiar with how Mr. Gascon’s policies actually play out on a day-to-day basis,” said Michele Hanisee, president of the group. “We believe the vote of our members will resonate with the voters of Los Angeles as they decide whether to recall Gascon from office and restore public safety as the priority of the district attorney’s office.”
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The vote was taken after Gascon refused to meet with his attorneys two weeks ago and instead appeared at a town hall with public defenders. Prosecutors have been critical of Gascon’s policies, which are implemented by a managerial team that he hired from the Public Defender’s Office.
Shortly after taking office, he posted a list of mandates that reversed decades of tough-on-crime charging and sentencing enhancements that had been overwhelmingly passed by California voters over the years.
One issue is the ability to prosecute teenage defendants as adults. Gascon was slammed by prosecutors and victims’ rights advocates for keeping a 17-year-old child molester in juvenile court so he could receive a light two-year sentence with no lifetime sex offender registration.
The defendant, now a trans woman named Hannah Tubbs, 26, boasted in a phone call about escaping justice for molesting a 10-year-old girl in 2014, Fox News reported.
In the tape, which was made public, Tubbs can be heard saying, “I’m going to plead out to it, plead guilty. They’re going to stick me on probation, and it’s going to be dropped — it’s going to be done. I won’t have to register, won’t have to do nothing.”
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Gascon has refused additional charges for guns, belonging in a gang, and participating in multiple felonies, which are “strikes” that could lead to life sentences. He reversed a decades-old tradition of sending prosecutors to parole hearings to advocate keeping prisoners behind bars.
